Released on CD-r by Syngate in cooperation with Spheric Music, THE AGE OF DECEPTION is the seventh solo album of Netherland electronic sound explorer Pepijn Courant. Born as a piano player and drummer, Pepijn soon realized that piano didn't give him the wide sound possibilities of synthesizers, so as a youngster he started to save money in order to purchase a keyboard. In 1989 he started his personal voyage into electronic sounds by releasing his first tape "Music from misty marshes". From that moment he followed his instinct and mixing his classical studies skills and everything that was surrounding him (from nature sounds to oriental concepts) gave birth to Akikaze which in Japanese language is meaning "autumn wind". The new album which is divided in two main parts ("The age of deception" and "Critical incidents") contains seventeen tracks composed during the 1994/2005 period. These tracks contain a wide range of sounds and atmospheres as well as the use of acoustic guitar and live drums here and there. The album's theme deals with the human ability to survive to catastrophic life events gaining out of this process strength and experience. Spanning from ambient to pure electronic suites where synth oscillators are coupled to rhythmical patterns Akikaze's tracks have always a main melody which enrich the sound texture created by the instruments. Musically THE AGE OF DECEPTION finds its roots on electronic music of the late 70s/early 80s and if you are a lover of early Vangelis stuff, you'll be interested into checking this album.

Already member of Digital Dream together with Andreas Morsch then active with Pyramid Peak, German guy Axel Stupplich is also active as a solo performer under the Axess moniker. His passion for electronic music made him play ambient sidereal music since day one in 1985 when, inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream, Kitaro and Jean-Michel Jarre, he started to develop his sound. VOICES OF DAWN is his third solo album and contains seven tracks which are taking inspiration from the theory that claims that extraterrestrials were our ancestors. The tracks paint sidereal landscapes focusing on rhythmical patterns and synthesizer long pads sounds/arpeggiator progressions creating mysterious and dreamy atmospheres. To full appreciate the tracks you have to let loose yourself and allow these melodies cradle you toward new worlds.

I like the packagings of this label, it’s small Czech diy label with not that man releases out but the releases are quite good (this one is without any doubd my favorite work so far) and with simple but cool packaging but you can see what I mean by checking their website. As I’ve probably said before I’m not that much into sampler even if some projects are damn interesting and some of my fave releases ever are samplers (just think to the "Isolationism" double cd and to "No New York" for example). By the way, this one belongs to the category of good samplers and with ups and downs it features a whole bunch of electronic musicians I’ve never heard before and some are well equipped with a hell of good taste for god sake. Sunao Inami shows us a good rhythmical ambient track can still be an interesting listening, from the ambient side of the record (ambient music has a big weight in the economy of this cd) we also have some dark winged act like Metheora, Strangelet Selectone who are more drone oriented while in some ways Landschaft is more minimal ambient. We’ve some soft suite like Chora et le Mechanics, some other really minimal and odd tracks like those of Alessandro Fiorin Damiani and Mark Tamea. In this ambient-electronic maelstrom you also have tracks like that of greek Emedy where you’ve some vocals, and a strange pre-techno feel, or Farmacia the track of which is mostly based on feedbacks. I think the guy who’s assembled the track list did it intentionally, the fact is the final tracks of this cd are quite melodic infact both Sthuza and Gurun Gurun deal with soft melancholic instrumental music, while the first is more depressed Gurun Gurun give us a relaxed quasi solar song.

The first question every Electro/Industrial-junkie asks, is the one, how much Nivek Ogre’s new solo-album will sound like a work of the famous veterans SKINNY PUPPY. I guess all readers of this web resource are familiar with PUPPY, therefore it doesn’t need any further excursions into their meaningful career. But OHGR is OGHR and hasn’t got too much to do with the famous Canadian giants. "Devil In My Details" comes out full of experiments, which multiple unheard sounds (you should hear the brass interments (!!!) on "Feelin’ Chicken"). Has Ogre especially under the PUPPY-moniker being often discovered as a spooky and scary person, the open-minded musician shines through his solo work. It is at least the work, which strengthens his status as being a real musician over his status as being the monstrous vocalists of a scene-related icon. His vocal performance is surely the one and only unique point which reminds on PUPPY, but that can’t be avoided. But thanks to the already reached status Ogre has received so far, this new album comes out quite unconventional, unorthodox and full of weird ideas. It isn’t a "hit" album which has to follow selling-related structures, it’s rather more the psychotic result, if Ogre and his band members are able produce without boundaries. Therefore most of the tracks are following each other without clear interruptions and it was intended to produce an album with only one long track. But at least here’s the point, where the record company has set a stop. If you’re ready for a musically quite diverse coarse, then give this album a try.

Another act with a so-called cult status now signed under the flag of the uprising Tympanik Audio-label, the British Electronica-specialist Tony Young and his infamous AUTOCLAV 1.1 project presents a new studio album. If the chosen album title and the generally depressive mood caused through Tony’s arrangements on this new album have any deeper with some personal experiences , maybe of a gone relationship is at least still a secret out of Tony’s private life, but I guess that Tony reflects quite often internals through his music. At least, this would fit also to the impression the beautiful album art with black/white photos in a digipak provides. Musically Tony has seldom before produced an album, which offers so much organic elements like guitars (check "All Long Black Spirals" featuring Jamie Blacker of ESA)and piano sounds besides the expected doze of IDM/Electronica music. It is surely a quite different and interesting point of view to explore a more organic sound outfit asides the known and futuristic Electronica elements – yes, this fusion may can be called innovative – but at least, those more Electronica-layered sounding tracks like the struggling "It’s Indifference" or the mechanical-moving but quite melodic "Hell Is The Face Of Love" (featuring a bass guitar performance by Dave Pybus of CRADLE OF FILTH) have my preference. "Love No Longer Lives Here" comes generally out surprising straight and 4/4-oriented, Tony’s often discovered complexity in his main rhythm structures have been reduced to take a backseat in the new AUTOCLAV 1.1 sound outfit. It is nevertheless a highly recommendable album full of refreshing ideas, but it needs an open mind and horizon from the listener.